ISS Science Operations Status Report for week ending May 24, 200
Normal science operations resumed this week following a cooling system
computer in the Russian Service Module that triggered the shutdown of
certain systems in the Destiny laboratory.
Experiments and experiment hardware shut down as part of an automated
"safing" procedure for the Station, Payload Operations Director Tim Horvath
said. Experiment reactivation began Sunday as soon as controllers at the
Payload Operations Center learned the Station was not threatened by the
event. EXPRESS Rack 4 was returned to operations within 40 minutes,
followed shortly by experiments inside the rack. Controllers successfully
re-activated EXPRESS Racks 1 and 2 on Monday. EXPRESS Racks house
experiments and provide connections for power, data, cooling, fluids and
other utilities.
On Wednesday – when the Station completed its 20,000th revolution of the
Earth since the 1998 launch of the Russian FGB module – the Operations
Center successfully installed computer software that will allow the EXPRESS
racks aboard the Station and ground systems to operate new Expedition Five
science experiments scheduled to arrive aboard the Space Shuttle later this
month.
"Recovering from the unexpected and forging ahead with preparations for new
science experiments as we have done this week is very typical of the kind of
teamwork it takes to do successful research in a remote, hostile environment
like space," Horvath said.
Science teams were assessing the impact of the shutdown this week, including
the impact of a slight temperature rise in the ARCTIC freezer used to store
biological samples for return to Earth. The brief temperature rise was
expected to have little or no effect on the samples and the results of the
science.
After collecting gas samples from the Biomass Production System on Tuesday,
the crew moved a wheat plant that had been interfering with the operation of
a cooling fan in growth chamber 1. They also transmitted some new video of
the plant growth chambers. Since then, they have continued a variety of
maintenance activities this week to collect samples and make sure the growth
chambers are supplied with water.
Also on Tuesday, the crew completed a background reading on the EVA
Radiation Monitoring (EVARM) badges. The badges give scientists a better
understanding of the radiation environment inside the Station in addition to
being worn during spacewalks to determining radiation dosages received by
specific parts of the body, such as the head, torso and legs. They also
finished packing the Experiment on Physics of Colloids in Space for its
return to Earth.
The Active Rack Isolation ISS Characterization Experiment (ARIS-ICE) team
began tests of the experimental vibration dampener on Wednesday that will
continue through next week. These tests are focused on changes in the
vibration environment of EXPRESS Rack 2 due to removing cables and some
fasteners from test and avionics sections of the colloids experiment in
preparation for their return to Earth. The crew conducted their monthly test
with the Pulmonary Function in Flight today (Thursday). The data session
marked the conclusion of the in-flight portion of the experiment.
Crew Earth Observations (CEO) photography targets for the week include
agricultural burning and smoke in Angola, Saharan dust being carried over
the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, wildfires in the Okefenokee Swamp in the
U.S., sediment loads in the Amazon delta, an area of the eastern Pacific
where many tropical storms form, ice and snow in the Patagonian region of
South America, the Colima volcano, and the Peruvian Andes.
With less than a week before the launch of the STS-111 mission to mark the
end of Expedition Four and the beginning of Expedition Five, several
experiments are already completed – Hoffman Reflex, Renal Stone, Pulmonary
Function in Flight, EarthKAM, Educational Payload Operations, Zeolite
Crystal Growth, Experiment on Physics of Colloids in Space, Protein Crystal
Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System, Advanced Astroculture, and
Cellular Biotechnology Support System cell science experiments.
Continuing to operate normally aboard the orbiting research station are the
Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, Commercial Protein Crystal
Growth, Space Acceleration Measurement System, Microgravity Acceleration
Measurement System, Materials International Space Station Experiment,
Pulmonary Function in Flight, Biomass Production System, EVA Radiation
Monitoring, Crew Earth Observations, Interactions and Protein Crystal
Growth-Enhanced Nitrogen Dewar.
